Hey again, just saw your response. Cool dude, I am also a bit of a space hermit but yeah let's speculate how life on such a planet could be.
I am uncertain what can and cannot be implemented and what exactly you would want to, so I'll just keep going in a general direction.
1. Planetary Conditions:
The planet could orbit said Red Dwarf and be caught in a tidal lock, the same side would face the sun at all times, and due to the proximity needed to a colder Red Dwarf the planet would likely have massive and scorching solar flares. These flares could happen on a daily basis, scientists theorise, although this point will fall to game balance more than science I believe. The star would be very active and flare for roughly the first billion and a half years of its lifespan. This means you can indeed do without the flares. Although the most likely scenario would be damaginf flares every few days or weeks. Plant-life would survive this by retracting into the ground, shielding itself by closing protective shells or petals, or alternatively smaller plants would simply burn away leaving roots or bulbs in the ground to regrow.
Similarly animal life would have to be adapted as well, larger creatures would have some means of UV protection, possibly retreating into a hardened shell for the flare, small creatures would likely burrow or retreat into cracks/caves.
Even with the solar threat though such a planet would not necessarily be barren. The planet could speculatively be incredibly moist, with most life ocurring on the twilight sections of the world. The enhanced atmospheric shielding given by the angle to the sun, and the proximity to the turbulant dark-side (where a never ending storm occurs between light and dark) would plausibly create an area of relentless rainstorms and extreme weather, this would cause the edge-zone to be the source of sprawling wetlands and winding rivers and swamps. This would likely be the source of most weather systems on the world. Even though superficially the planet seems to be static, it is an illusion created by the solar position, the planet does rotate so it will have wind systems in the high atmosphere also. And keep in mind the dark side will fall well below -40c and the light side directly facing the sun would have temperatures that could rise to +80c. Also studies have shown that it is possible for air and water circulation between the dark and light sides to occur without necessarily freezing.
2. Fauna and Flora
As any (Habitable) planet it will have massive variation of life occuring, this can range from tiny and colonial insect life all the way to massive, barely-moving beasts that extract minerals from the ground and photosynthesize for nourishment. It will likely have a large spectrum of animals using the sun to bolster nutrition, or at the very least many animals will use the sun as a way to manage temperature effectively. Given that it is stationary in the sky, there is no need for other regulatory systems apart from perhaps opening flaps to absorb heat or dissipate it.
Also there is indication that solar flares emit a certain detectable signature (be it radiation or electro-magnetism) before flaring, many animals and plants will likely have evolved to detect this. They will likely use this to queue closing of shells or in some cases even the opening of heat absorbing flaps if they need to rapidly heat up or heat something up.
Another thing that would likely occur is forced climate change by plants, the flares would (if occuring) cause DNA damage to anything exposedm so plants or colonies of insects or whatever you like, even blankets of fungus, could emit "spore" bursts to obscure the sun, millions of plants releasing this burst of floating particles or gas could block out the sun in a flare or at the very least lower the damage done to closer to sunburn rather than cancer inducing flashes and massive fires.
This could be a nice event to have on some flares (or even all flares to explain why settlers outside are not burnt to death (might still get a little damage as sunburn still)
Water on the surface of the planet would possibly become gelled by organisms living within it, this could make it walkable and mineable, it would be used by micro-organisms as a sunshield or even possibly a means of making the colony spread when animals eat the gel and it sticks to their faces as they move to liquid water...
Just remember that as most animals would hide in a flare (even with the fungal burst or whatever), you will very likely see dangerous predators emerging to devour static organisms. Also after each flare there will likely be a few dead animals (should be anyway) that will attract the scavengers of the planet.
Also due to the flares some plants might actually use heating "arrays" to melt minerals or superheat gasses for defense. Some plants might even use it to kill smaller creatures around them for fertilising purposes. Even electrically charged plants are possible. It all depends on *where* on such a planet the crashsite is though.
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Anyway I hope it is not all gibberish hahaha, perhaps you can draw some inspiration from it and build on it. I myself have been jonesing for a more realistic world and crash-landing. I hope you at the very least found this an enjoyable read.
Kind regards.
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Topic: UNKNOWN WORLD (UW) (Read 31063 times)